Liam

Yeah I wasn't thinking about greenscreen making it okay, duh.

Rolling shutter might look weird if that comes up, and you'll have to rotate and scale your footage every time. Scaling at weird numbers, especially if there's some sharpening present might give it a weird effect, moire, alliasing etc. Have to adjust the focal lengths, if you're particular about that at all. A video tripod usually doesn't even have an option to flip the camera over like that comfortably. Not sure if there's anything else.. do your thing

The only problem ^

(Certain people will think you're crazy). I've always thought it would be fun to mess with, but the implication would always be you're using a smartphone and don't know nothin

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/paul-thomas-anderson-cinematographer-phantom-thread-daniel-day-lewis-1201848286/

I assume some of you have heard about this by now (But if not^). PTA was his own Director of Photography on his next film, Phantom Thread (Daniel Day Lewis's last film).

Obviously too soon to say how this went for him, but what are your thoughts on this?

Biting off more than he can chew? Too many jobs to worry about? Not enough experience?

Or entirely worth it for how much he'll gain in creative expression in now each of the main areas of the filmmaking process? (just spitballing)

15 minutes ago, Aussie Ash said:

Well done Liam !!! a finished project ,it sure made me laugh !

I am surprised that you did both the female voices ,they sure sound like ladies but some of their words are sort of slurred and hard to understand.

Have you done any work with normal puppets like Seasame st or "Yoda" some of them are very convincing characters

thanks!

Yeah  was pretty pleased over all with the voice changer I found. I'm looking at new audio equipment for sure though...

yeah, I was looking a little bit at real puppets, since I have no actors haha. drawing made a little more sense to me, but I do love muppets

1 minute ago, mercer said:

Live action or animated?

one of each! but the animated one seems more doable right now

2 minutes ago, mercer said:

I think what's really interesting about it is that it seems like a comic strip. So keep making them and keep them short. Maybe try and get one out every few weeks or a month. And then I guess spread them across the internet. Post them on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Instagram along with Vimeo. I assume there is a huge following for 2D animation, so I would assume you can get it seen, if you find your audience. Hell Adult Swim may have some type of Forum or comment section, at least a Facebook page. Post a link there. Either way, nice work and keep at it, I look forward to the next installation.

If you go forward with it. 

Thanks again! I have about one Twitter follower, so that might not benefit me, haha. my plan is like a webseries next. Just finished the rough draft of the script for it. slightly ambitious though, so we will see how this goes.

1 minute ago, mercer said:

Honestly at first I was put off by the simplicity of the animation but after 30 seconds or so, the rhythm of the back and forth banter sucked me in and I appreciated the basic animation.

I understand your point about voice actors, but don't sell your work short. Obviously you wouldn't be doing it if you didn't believe in it. So own it and be proud of it. Also, there are plenty of beginner voice actors that would work for free and if you sell your intentions with pride, they'll be happy to jump onboard. 

Remember, most people lack creativity... even people pursuing creative endeavors, and when they see quirky work, they believe it's very artistic and want to be a part of it. Use that... exploit the shit out of your quirkiness.

I've never done any animation, so out of curiosity... how long did it take to produce? Are you planning on entering it in any contests?

the actual animation probably only took like a week or two - including making the puppets. film festivals kinda put a bad taste in my mouth with my last film, and I didn't see this one being any more of a smash hit. And it's incredibly not fun just to hang out for a year while you occasionally get rejection emails. So I just went to vimeo this time, adding it to some groups and channels. I guess I'm hoping for that to kind of get me somewhere on its own, but yeahh...

37 minutes ago, mercer said:

Actually, I was going to commend you with the voices. In your first short, although distinct, it was still obvious both voices were yours. This is not definitively obvious and you controlled the performance(s) very well. If you do continue doing animation, there are a lot of voice actors online involved with audio dramas and most usually have the equipment and ability to record high quality clips.

Well it's definitely weird, but that's right in your wheelhouse. But what I've learned about you and your work, from our discussions on screenwriting and from your shorts, is that your work is weird yet charming. This piece exemplifies that. I think you're real close here... keep at it. 

How difficult was the animation?

Excellent news about the voices. I was definitely going through some paranoia about that.

I've bee trying to look at voice actors.. mostly I feel like no one will actually care about my work where I'm at right now, and I feel super weird about crediting someone in my film who only helped for the $50 or whatever.

The animation was pretty simple. I drew them all by hand, then just traced them into the computer, a puppet for each character, with variations with the mouths open, eyes blinking, added color, composed each of the full pictures I would need (often just back and forth between a couple), and did the actual animation, like timing, in my NLE over the audio track.

7 hours ago, mercer said:

Cool. It looks like something you'd see on Adult Swim. This genre works so well with your dialogue.

Did you do all of the voices?

I loved how I never felt anything for the characters, they just existed.

It was almost so off it was genius. Banal yet edgy. When they were in bed, it went to a different level and I loved it. Would like to see these characters at the supermarket or whispering at Church. Or stuck in traffic.

At first I wished their mouths moved more and then I enjoyed the lack of movement. However, I would have liked a blink or eyebrow lift once in a while.

Make another one but change the main character's name. Linus is too famous a cartoon character to use. 

Thanks Mercer!

Yeahh, I did all the voices.. mostly with a voice changer program though. Hope it wasn't tooo obvious and weird haha

I'm looking at slightly more complicated animation for my next one

Good point on the name, damn. It was between Linus and Popeye

Not very complicated animation, but it worked to tell the story I think. And some good practice for my next stuff hopefully.

Also, not super relevant for this forum maybe haha

I was sitting on it for a while just to see if anything else came to mind on how to work it differently, but I think I'm done with it now.

Feedback welcome

I think you want a blog to post on, not a forum.

Still good luck though

On 6/15/2017 at 3:00 PM, zerocool22 said:

They used 6 ursa mini 4.6k's for shooting "American Gods".

B cameras? Imdb says alexa xt

For now just know all of your options, study up on what's possible, and why some people choose certain options, don't invest yet. Use your camera very bare bones for the time being until you know you can use it this way, but you see exactly how something you can afford would be helpful. A pro can use just a camera and a lens. For instance, a variable nd makes sense, but the good ones cost money, and it can be another thing to fidget with, and make the image worse, and I very rarely want to change exposure within a shot.

Maybe do mainly photography at leat at times - much easier to manage in almost every way than video, and your camera is better at photos than video.

Obsess over it a little

And yeah, learn more from the real pros than from youtube gear heads

Good luck

Ya, Blue Jay was produced by Netflix, not just added to Netflix. That's what I said.

Weird that Blackmagic 4k was skipped too.

Anyone know if or think they would accept a film shot on film? (If scanned to their liking I guess)

I can't find what Blue Jay was shot on, that was a netflix original, sort of, from just recently.. maybe you can pull some strings if Netflix isn't the full owner of your film? Which, any filmmaker can put the name "Michael Productions" or whatever on their film I would think.. Or maybe their guidelines weren't quite official by this film's release. For some reason I don't feel like it was shot in 4k

Edit: turns out it was shot on that 4 million iso camera canon recently came out with, weirdly.. so not to these standards

Well, maybe, but there are those who "edit in camera" pretty well and of course even edit in the script. That'll cut down on the issue.. It's obviously different being upset that they're cutting 80 of your 85 glamour shots vs being upset they're cutting a scene of dialogue

Best sunscreen for low light on a $5 budget?

They announced this a vouple years ago, and then gave no updates and eventually took down the webpage, so.. Cool!

Weird @Ebrahim Saadawi hasn't chimed in yet. He knows some stuff in this area

I like Audacity.. but it's basically all I've even looked at since it's the free one. I've heard it's limited compared to others, which I believe, but I've never felt too trapped

6 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Not a very good rumour. Not their highest rating for the source and specs sounds made up. 26MP? Makes no sense.

It's been nearly 6 years since the old 6D, they have to get it right.

Problem there is the completely different set of lenses you'd need to buy and manual focus ring that turns in opposite direction plus the terrible 2x crop factor on the D500 and the expense of the D5 means you may as well get the 1D X Mark II instead with DPAF.

Yeah but if he was somewhat considering keeping the sonys with the c200, he may be alright with a couple lens brands. Smaller files sizes than the mjpeg, and still larger sensor than xc10. Was just throwing it out there

C100ii and hire a sound guy? On a $1500 budget? 

Maybe a 4k nikon? Color science is often compared, but not sure about matching them exactly. Plus they still have issues

@HockeyFan12 yeah, that's the plan! I only have one festival experience, and basically none of the filmmakers watched anyone else's work or wanted anything from it other than being told they were great, I guess.. I search in vimeo like all the time, though almost completely unsure if anyone else uses it that way. I'm beyond blessed to have several ideas I can make without any help, but it might not be sustainable..

Thanks, @HelsinkiZim. But I didn't give you good advice anyway, so we're square

@HockeyFan12 love it. Right now I'm mostly trying to meet collaborators I think, so for that I think I still need to do the whole crossing my fingers thing, but I'll tell em to eat my dust in a couple years B)

@fuzzynormal I kinda thought most festivals wanted a variety, except maybe in production quality. I'll have to check their websites more.. so many websites.

I was just thinking trailers. Thing is, one of them is going to be 3 minutes, and half of it is a spoiler, haha. I'll have to get creative